I'm back!!

A new project aims to send a special message from Earth — a type of global "selfie" — into space, by uploading it to a spacecraft traveling through the cosmos on its way to Pluto. Led by Hawaii-based artist Jon Lomberg, the so-called One Earth project aims to beam pictures, sounds and other data representing the planet's inhabitants to NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. NASA's latest voyaging probe, the New Horizons spacecraft, will fly by Pluto in 2015, on its way out of the solar system. But unlike Voyager and Pioneer, the New Horizons probe is not carrying any information about Earth and its inhabitants. Lomberg dreamed up the idea of beaming a message to the spacecraft that could be carried out into the galaxy. But instead of the message being generated by only a few scientists and artists, Lomberg wanted this one to reflect people from around the world.

NASA accepted the proposal and has agreed to set aside 100MB for the crowd sourced content on the New Horizons probe, after the spacecraft finishes capturing images of Pluto. So now that the project has been approved, where do you start? Lomberg envisions having people from around the world, including kids, submit photos and other forms of media online. But he also wants to include contributions from people who don't have access to the Internet, such as tribes in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. Submissions could span a range of subjects, from humans to other animals to objects within the solar system. But Lomberg and his team also want to include images that reveal the dark side of Earth, such as pictures of famine or the atomic bomb.

To deny humanity's problems would create a dishonest picture of Earth, Lomberg said.